27.12.12

Also found under the Xmas tree this year, an addition to HM's collection of presses. This one probably a toy, made in the late 1800s? Beautifully made: dovetails & hand-carved threads. Suspect the wood is oak.

The chase, which came with several pieces of identical wooden furniture and (only) one of two screws used to lock things in place underneath the platen, slides underneath the platen, which is regulated by a screw. Two hinges are missing from one end of the chase, so perhaps there was some kind of a frisket that folded down?

Presumably the chase is slid to one side for inking, pushed under the platen for inking, and slid to the far side to remove the printed sheet?

Why the frame is so tall is a bit of a mystery; doesn't seem entirely necessary to achieve whatever pressure the wooden frame could withstand. And a drawer in the bottom.

We'll give it a whirl with a linocut & post the results.

Seen at the same place where the press was found, but not purchased because of its outrageous price ($300), some kind of small copy press of Scottish manufacture. The platen is made of wood. It does not lower completely to the bed; about a quarter inch of space remains, perhaps for whatever kind of packing was used when making copies?

26.12.12

Found under the tree this Christmas, a copy of This Rimy River, the catalogue from an exhibition of Vaughan Oliver's design work for, among others, the English label 4AD. It was Oliver's album cover designs (done in collaboration with his v23 partner Nigel Grierson) in the mid-1980s that first opened HM's eyes to the variety, potential and impact of types in design. And not just the regular edition, but the deluxe edition issued in a quarter-seude binding with clear acrylic boards.

"Where Oliver has succeeded as a visionary is in his amazing balance
and almost timeless feel to much of his work. He is a classic graphic
designer in every aspect of color sense, typography, layout, art
direction, concept and, at times, humor. What makes Oliver so interesting is his place in history. He is very
much born of the pre-digital design era and this is reflected strongly
in his work as a visual subtext." - Tobias Grime

"This Rimy River is a catalog of an
exhibition held at the
Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles in 1994. Coming eight years after the
Lonely Is An Eyesore
deluxe box* design it marks another watershed in
v23's studio output. In addition to a large-format paperback edition, the book was issued in a limited edition of 400 copies, using the regular edition as its starting
point. The
original page designs have been overprinted with two
new layers of
artwork. The first overprint, in black, utilizes
enlarged details of
archival artwork which virtually obliterate the
existing illustrations
and text. This, in turn, is overlaid with one large
word per page,
running bottom to top in a translucent bronze ink. The words are an
extract from Victoria Mitchell's poem Dearest Vaya
con Dios Darling,
which inspired the exhibition's title This Rimy
River.The
resulting palimpsest, more painting than book, is
finished with end
papers that incorporate snapshots of the L.A. show
bound in a patterned
plexiglass hardcover, and housed in a luxurious
velvet slipcase." - lifted & mutated from the site of the book's distributor,Art Books.

* Lonely Is an Eyesore was a sampler issued by 4AD in 1986, featuring bands from its roster. The near-mythical wood-box issue consisted on 100 copies of the album issued in a wooden box along with some ephemeral material. If you have one, please send it to HM with an invoice; we will be pleased to remit with haste.

Oliver's work with 4AD petered out by the '90s, but in 2009 he spearheaded the design of an elaborate box set covering the Pixies entire recording career, titled Minotaur. With this one we might debate whether aspects of the design sufficiently considered the real-world constraints of interacting or storing the set: it weighs 25 pounds (including the five studio albums on both CD and vinyl [why?], plus a book and various other items) and is covered in faux fur. It does, however, exemplify the creative audacity and originality that has characterized Oliver's work. Here's an interview he did about the project. And here's a good interview between two other graphic designers, about Oliver's work and influence.

When Minotaur was released, NME ran an interview with Black Francis in which he discusses the central role Oliver played in creating a visual esthetic that complimented the band's music. This Rimy River is an immersive example of both innovative contemporary book design, and Oliver's esthetic influence over many other bands on what was, at the time, one of the coolest labels around.

16.12.12

This racket might finally pay for itself. Recently found in the Palm Beach Post:

Unfortunately the opportunity, like all of the equipment, probably is long gone, since this was from the March 1, 1939 issue. It was found in behind a Derrydale Press equestrian print of the same era. Nice & acidic, just the way we like our matting. The print (along with two others from the series of four) was found at a jumble shop, and has led us into an interesting investigation of the D.P.'s activities.

Horses & hounds aren't exactly our scene, but from a printmaking perspective, the work is exquisite: aquatint and hand coloring. The artist is Paul Brown, an American who who specialized in equestrian subjects. James Cummins recently issued a catalogue devoted to the work of the D.P. Despite the fact that much of the work was basically vanity publishing, the quality seems to have been consistently high, as are the prices. An excellent short history of the press, written by a Mr. Steve Starrantino, can be found at this location.

Horses and hounds may become our scene: another recent trip out netted two drypoints by Irish artist Tom Carr. More horses, but it was the quality of this pair that was evident from across a very large & jumbled room, not the subject matter. Carr was primarily a watercolorist, but like all good painters he stretched himself with printmaking. He studied drypoint etching
under George Vernon Stokes and produced many limited edition etchings
of his hunting scenes in small editions (drypoint being the least resilient of intaglio methods).

The combination of intaglio with letterpress has been a particular interest at HM since the beginning, but we haven't had much opportunity to play in that direction. Part of the hurdle has been the necessity of having someone else do the intaglio printing. However, recent experiments at printing small copperplate engravings and etchings with our Washington press have been promising, and we hope to incorporate it into projects in the near future. Probably not a combination they taught at the Southern School of Printing back in '39.

10.12.12

Coincidentally coinciding with HM's release of Angel is an album of new compositions by Harold Budd. Titled Bandits of Stature, the album features 14 compact (i.e. short) string quartets played by the Formalist Quartet. Our copy is en route, so no more details at this time, but clips can be heard on the Darla site.

Harold's always had a flair for song and album titles: "Flowered Knife Shadows," "Balthus Bemused by Color," "Ice Floes in Eden," "Gorgon's Anxious Pansy"... Be fun to gather a bunch or artists, give each a title and see what people come up with visually. Perhaps a future project.

7.12.12

An HM colleague was in LA recently, working on her tan & taking meetings. Known to haunt flea markets & rummage sales, she brought back a copy of the West Coast Peddler's November 2012 issue. It includes an article about the International Printing Museum in Carson, CA. The story runs across several pages (filling spaces between ads), and features lots of photos. One is shown above: the museum's Washington press. With a garish paint job that makes our press's bile yellow & bilge green look good. But what caught our eye was the thing sitting under the bed of the press, a little Albion folio.

Recent posts have recorded our adventures at (finally) printing with HM's Pratt-Albion, and explaining the main reason for our procrastination: why one would ever choose to use the Albion when there a much bigger Washington right beside it. This photo illustrates the argument perfectly. No disrespect to the Albion: beautiful press, beautifully made. Printing well is just much easier on the Washington.

4.12.12

Copies of the prospectus for Cutting Paper are going out this week. The folded sheet is printed on the Rives BFK being used in the book, and each copy features a title and initial letter paper cuts, plus an original early 20th-century Japanese family crest stencil (monkiri) cut from persimmon-dyed mulberry paper (a different stencil in each prospectus).

The prospectus was printed here at HM, but the actual book (9.5 x 12 inches, 80 pp.) is being printed by David Clifford on his Vandercook press. The edition will be 30 copies issued in two states: the deluxe copies (1 - 10) will be bound in full leather and include additional samples; regular copies (11 - 30) will be bound in handmade cut-paper paper. Both states will be issued in a clamshell box, with additional samples laid in. Most of the edition is already subscribed by HM's regular clients, but get in touch if you are interested; we're keeping a list.

29.11.12

Will Rueter is just about to issue a substantial new project from The Aliquando Press. Pressing Matters presents two essays by Leonard Bahr on the private press, augmented by a chapter on the subject by Paul Hayden Duensing, and one on the economics of private press publishing by us/HM/ Rollin Milroy.

Bahr was a commercial typographer whose greatest creativity was reserved for his own private imprint, the Adagio Press. In the 1960s and '70s he issued many items, from ephemera to substantial pamphlets, with type and typography the over-riding focal points. His most ambitious project, by several orders of magnitude, was An Account of the Work of T.J. Cobden-Sanderson & Cobden-Sanderson's Partnership with Emery Walker (1969), with texts by Norman Strause and John Dreyfus, and two original Doves Press leaves tipped into each copy.

Will received galley proofs from Bahr of his essays when they were first set in the early 1970s. Bahr had initially intended them to be the first parts of a book that would look at different aspects of private press publishing. Chapters 1 and 2 from Pressing Matters - "The Idea of the Private Press" and "The Private Press Defined" - were issued by Bahr, in a revised form, in the first two issues of his periodical Typographia (no more numbers were published). The book for which they were initially conceived was also to include chapters on the purpose of the private press; how imagination, innovation and patience should be employed to
bring out the unique advantages of the private press; and economics - how a private press can be made to survive, if not prosper, within
our not-too-bookish society.

For whatever reasons, the type remained standing after Bahr pulled the proofs later sent to Will, but the project was abandoned. "After proofing his essays Leonard seems to have been unwilling to
speculate further on the private press, feeling that the topic was in
constant change," Will writes in the books afterword, where he also offers his own thoughts on Bahr's questions about purpose and the importance of imagination.

The most striking feature of the new Aliquando book is the 17 "mini-broadsides" throughout the book, each presenting a quote related to the topic of the private press drawn from sources as diverse as Rudolf Koch, Peter Beilenson, and William Everson. Bahr included similar, but less extravagantly adorned quotations in the Typographia issues. Will's broadsides employ his extensive collection of types and ornaments, combined with his talent for using color (and numerous press runs!).

Perhaps even more than private press printing, Paul Hayden Duensing's interest lay in private type design and casting. He was an important mentor to people like Bahr and Will, plus Jim Rimmer (who created a type named after PHD) and many others who were interested in learning how to cast type. His chapter in Pressing Matters, titled "Private Printing, Private Typefounding," is a collection of his writings on the topic, both published and in correspondence with Will. "His words seem to me an essential adjunct to Leonard's thoughts," Will explains in his afterword. (PHD and Will collaborated in 1976 on what may be the only American-Canadian private press co-publication, Buchstabenfreude, the Delight of Letters.)

Pressing Matters is published in an edition of 50 copies (7 x 11 inches, approx. 50 pp.). The paper is Hahnemuhle, the primary text faces Optima and Palatino. The first ten are extra-bound (details to TBD), and include a manuscript broadside in Will's beautiful calligraphy bound in. Copies 11 to 50 are cased by Will in marbled paper over boards with a cloth spine. Contact Will though his site for more details.

27.11.12

Visited Alan Loney's excellent blog, was sorry to learn of Alessandro Zanella's death last summer. He was a skilled handpress printer (Edizioni Ampersand) and compatriot of Gabriel Rummonds. The University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library has posted an obituary and online exhibit of some of his works.

22.11.12

With the arrival of the slipcases this week, Angel, the new collection of poems by Harold Budd, is ready for publication. The poems were written over a period of 18 months, the last one after the death of the mother of Harold's son this past July. His poems have been described as the translations in verse of his music, combining wit, restraint, pathos and honesty.

Harold's work does not want, nor would it benefit from typographic gymnastics.* Spare and simple are the criteria, with particular attention paid to his intentions with breaks and space (line and word). Typographically the biggest challenge was planning a book in which some poems were just a few lines, while others ran over two pages; and where some lines had just one word, and others ran on, unbroken. The text was set by hand in 18-pt Perpetua and 30-pt Monument, and printed on sheets of semi-opaque Barcham Green Bodleian paper in a single color.

Because the Bodleian is such a thin sheet, the entire seven sheets comfortably made a single signature, which is sewn into a stiff printed wrap with a two-layered dust jacket: a sheet of hand-marbled paper is wrapped in semi-transparent Japanese tissue, upon on which the title has been printed. The book is presented in a slipcase covered in the same vintage marbled paper, with a spine label.

The quantity of Bodleian paper available restricted the edition to just 26 copies, which were press lettered A to Z and signed on the colophon by the author. Of these just 20 are offered for sale, priced at $450.

(* Just to see how things looked, Harold's poems were initially used to set trial pages for HM's upcoming book of typographic frolics, putting the various metal fonts in our cabinets to work. One of our favorite sketches was for this untitled poem from Angel:

As we said, this kind of playfulness doesn't suit the poems in Angel. But one poem that was cut from the book, "The Desert Tramp," will be included, with typographic flourishes, in a collection of miscellany HM will be printing for issue at Codex next spring.)

15.11.12

Finally printed something with the little Albion foolscap press. It's only been five years since its arrival. The cause of the delay was twofold: why use the little press when the much bigger Washington was right there; and "using" the Albion would entail a boring initiation period of making adjustments and getting used to how it wanted to work. But with the Washington still out of commission due to a fractured frisket, and some printing needed doing, attention turned to the Albion. The printing was the promised broadside version of Harold Budd's poem "Autumn Song 1990," taken from Angel (the poem that broke the frisket!)

The press was made by Steve Pratt. As recorded on the finial, it is the 15th Albion to emerge from his press works, completed in the late summer of 2007. It's a beautiful piece of casting & machining, and deserved to have been put to work immediately. Alan Dye, at Nimble Impressions, received Pratt Albion Number 18 in 2011, and was much quicker off the mark to put it to work. He also took better pictures of its arrival & use; see here.

The type for "Autumn Song 1990" was moved over to the bed of the Albion. Making it fit required some resetting, mostly reducing the leading. Then building a skeleton: the Albion's bed is noticeably larger than the 15 x 20 inch platen, so figuring out how to position the platen bearers took some thinking (since, once positioned, that's where they'll stay).

The press arrived with the platen well balanced, and the only real adjustment required was to the plate that bolts to the back of the bed, and from which the tympan hinges. When lowered, the tympan was not parallel to the bed; the hinge end was too high. But the plate that incorporates the hinges can be adjusted up and down (thanks for that tip, Steve Heaver of the Hill Press).

Last, with the type locked up and the tympan packing in place, the arc of the bar had to be adjusted. The Albion doesn't have the same feel as the Washington when pulling an impression. It probably is just a matter of getting used to the feel of it. The Washington has a little point of compression, a subtle lock, when you know it's just right. The Albion doesn't have that (at least, not yet); the bar just goes till it won't go no more, whether it's the stop or the type that calls halt. So, allowing for an average amount of packing on either side of the tympan, adjusting the stop to get enough impression, but not so much that the type will be damaged, took a bit of fussing.

The biggest surprise when printing with the Albion (vs the Washington) really shouldn't have been a surprise at all. It was how much pull was required to achieve a good impression. With the Washington, pulling the bar requires no more effort than closing a heavy door; the platen's 300+ pounds do all the work. The platen on the Albion, however, probably doesn't weigh much more than 50 pounds, so getting a good impression required both more muscle and a longer dwell.

About 40 copies of the broadside were printed, most on Reg Lissel's HM Text, some on Guarro laid. For a first effort on a new press, it's acceptable. It takes time to get to know a press's quirks (hopefully not the 10 years it took with the Washington). Next up is a prospectus for Cutting Paper, which will be printed two up, and is therefore more characteristic of the kind of formes we print.

Copies of the broadside and prospectus will be going out to our regulars and friends before the end of the month.

p.s. Rummonds' book was, of course, consulted while tuning up the Albion. Ran across this great offhand comment:

"If speed is important to you, try a Vandercook proof press or a photocopy machine."

13.11.12

Simon Fraser University's Special Collections currently has a papermaking exhibition on, centered around Reg Lissel's work. In addition to various HM books printed on Reg's paper, SFU's Special Collections holds an extensive archive of his papers, along with Reg's handwritten recipe and processing notes for many of the sheets. For anyone who finds themself at the top of Burnaby Mountain, it's worth stopping by.

8.11.12

Stumbled across an article on printing damp in an early (1986) issue of Hand Papermaking. It's titled On Damp Printing, by Suzanne Ferris and Neal Bonham. They'd been students of Walter Hamady's during the 1970s, at the University of Wisconsin, who moved to Seattle and started the Sea Pen Press and Paper Mill. In addition to making paper, they published books printed on their own paper.

The article offers a brief description of the blotter method for
damping. Of more interest, however, is the article's discussion of
making paper to be printed damp: considerations relating to materials
and processing.

After establishing a process for
achieving consistency in damping, the biggest problem the authors report
in the article is accuracy in registration due to the variation in
expansion from sheet to sheet. This was a problem for them because they
were printing on a Vandercook, and had to
align sheets along one of the edges. This is one of the great strengths
of printing with a handpress, on points: registration is achieved
from the center of a sheet outwards.

The only part of
the article HM would disagree with is the authors' claim that handmade
paper does not necessarily require damping to achieve the best results:

"The
entire process [of printing damp] involves three times the work. This
method should not be used simply as a dogmatic response to handmade
paper, soft or hard, sized or unsized."

If the paper's hard (i.e., sized), then yes, it should be dampened. Otherwise it's a waste of good paper. That's not dogma, it's just common sense.

Hand Papermaking ran an interview with Bonham in 1994, at which time Sea Pen was still operating. The press and mill closed some time before the end of the decade. Google shows nothing more current for Bonham. Ferris now lives in western Washington, working as a garden designer and botanical illustrator.

p.s. no news on the poor Washington's tympan. It's still with the doctor, being figured out.

30.10.12

The tympan bone isn't connected to the frisket bone. That's a problem. Was (finally getting around to) printing a broadside of one of the poems from Harold Budd's Angel, titled "Autumn Song 1990." It's one of the longer poems, and the intent was to print it on halves of Reg Lissel's folio sheets, so trimmed that would be about 6 by 18 inches. It's the same setting as printed in the book, but arranged in a single column.

Makeready didn't go well, in part because the initial (lazy-ass) plan was to arrange the forme within the existing skeleton, which meant the roller would pass parallel to the type, rather than perpendicular as it should. (For explanation, see Rummonds.) That clearly wasn't going to work, so a quick re-jig to insert new bearers for (proper) perpendicular inking was undertaken, and all of the accompanying re-jig of packing. Better, but still not great. Two pulls of that and there was a scraping upon the platen when the bed was rolled in, that shouldna' been there. Splits goes one of the hinges holding the frisket to the tympan.

Said hinge was dummied up about 12 years ago by someone doing their best, but with no concept of what a typman is or how things worked. Long story short, too much solder was used to attach the (newly fabricated) frisket to the (old) tympan; grinding ensued, and over the past dozen years, what solder remained has finally given up the ghost. All work has, therefore, come to a complete stop, and having, for once, an excuse for this state of affairs, we are inclined to see how long this can be played out.

Meanwhiles, we have finished the jackets for Angel. Our plan to do paste papers didn't do justice to Harold's arabesques, so we instead used the same c.1960s hand-marbled papers used for the slipcases as jackets, and covered those in a kozo sheet upon which the book's title was printed.

17.10.12

Cutting Paper, the next book from the Hodgson/Cohen team, is making progress with many small, precise cuts. In terms of collating the signatures and many samples presented on individual leaves, it is perhaps the most complex book the two have yet undertaken (which, when you consider The WunderCabinet and their color series, is saying something).

Over the past eight months Barbara has worked full-time on the brief essays describing each of the sections focusing on cut paper art from specific countries, cultures and techniques, and the overall design for the book. Claudia has been developing ideas for the binding (handmade paper with the tile and designs cut out, over thin boards; an early prototype shown above), and both of them have been hunting for historical samples (in sufficient quantities for the edition) and creating original pieces for the book (Claudia's poor apprentice has been cutting out dozens of tiny paper swans).

A page for the book has been added to the HM site, with some additional details. We'll continue to post project updates on this blog as production progresses. We will have a copy on display at the Codex book fair next February. Later this month we will be contacting our regular booksellers and collectors of previous works by Barbara and Claudia, to reserve copies. Like their previous books, we expect demand to exceed supply (the edition will be just 30 copies).

Rollin Milroy

Heavenly Monkey

Heavenly Monkey is the private press of Rollin Milroy (above) and a revolving cast of friends. While the history of books and printing are particular interests, we submit to no specific publishing program, other than books that we would want to own. Editions range in size from 25 to 50 copies, depending on the amount of handwork required to complete each copy. We publish an average of two new titles each year. Collaboration is by invitation; no submissions or inquiries please. Contact us at HM [at] heavenlymonkey.com